Please note seminar location: MATERIALS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING SEMINAR Texture and Anisotropy in the Bismuth Sodium Titanate System By: Christopher M. Fancher Ph.D. Final Examination Co-Advisors: Prof. K. J. Bowman and Prof. J. E. Blendell ABSTRACT Bi0.5Na0.5TiO3 has received interest as a potential replacement for lead containing ferroelectrics. However, the piezoelectric response of pure Bi0.5Na0.5TiO3 does not compare to the strong piezoelectric response of lead based piezoelectrics. To increase the piezoelectric response, Bi0.5Na0.5TiO3 has been alloyed with BaTiO3 and K0.5Na0.5NbO3. Another route to enhance the response is to take advantage of the anisotropic properties by inducing a preferred crystallographic orientation. Both routes were used to investigate the effect a crystallographic texture has on the strain response of Bi0.5Na0.5TiO3-based ceramics. A crystallographic texture was induced by templated grain growth of pure phase Bi0.5Na0.5TiO3 templates using the tape casting method to orient template particles relative to the tape cast normal. Sintered Bi0.5Na0.5TiO3 based materials developed a strong (00l)pc fiber texture relative to the tape cast normal, with no preferential alignment relative to the tape cast plane. Textured Bi0.5Na0.5TiO3-(5)BaTiO3 showed a piezoelectric response of 245 pC/N, a better than 50% enhancement from the 150 pC/N response of randomly oriented samples. The Bi0.5Na0.5TiO3-(x)BaTiO3-(y)K0.5Na0.5NbO3 (x,y) system has been shown to undergo electric-field-induced phase transformation from a pseudocubic to polar phase. For (7,2) a strong 8.67 multiples of a random distribution (MRD) crystallographic texture increased the macroscopic strain response by 50%. Applying the electric field perpendicular to the fiber texture axis reduces the macroscopic strain response of textured (7,2) by 17%. The affect field direction has on the electric-field-induced phase transformations of textured (7,2) was investigated using in situ electric field dependent diffraction. In situ diffraction data showed the high strain response of textured (7,2) can be attributed to a reversible pseudocubic to tetragonal transformation. The field-induced tetragonal phase nucleates preferentially with a strong c-axis alignment in the electric field direction, ferroelastic domain texture. In situ diffraction data suggests the origin of the reduction in strain associated with a field applied perpendicular to the fiber texture axis is the result of a shorter induced lattice spacing and lower domain texture. Date: Thursday, April 4, 2013 Time: 9:30 A.M. Place: HAMP 1113 Lisa Stacey Secretary/Development Assistant Purdue University School of Materials Engineering 765/494-4100